


I Forgive You, But Can I Forgive Me?

by falterunbroken



Category: Pretty Little Liars
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 11:33:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22849468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falterunbroken/pseuds/falterunbroken
Summary: Migrating over from FF.net. I wrote this story back in 2015.Pre-Spemily one-shot, missing scene from 6x02.
Relationships: Emily Fields/Spencer Hastings
Kudos: 10





	I Forgive You, But Can I Forgive Me?

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to move my stories over to AO3 - they are all old and have not been edited, so have fun y'all. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own any aspect of Pretty Little Liars or the characters therein.

By the time two in the morning rolled around, I felt like I had been chasing after sleep forever, never quite close enough to reach out and grasp it. The flashbacks certainly did nothing to help matters. Every time I closed my eyes, there I was again, responsible for causing pain to one of my best friends, or experiencing pain myself. The guilt was worse than any physical pain I had ever experienced in my life. In truth, I wasn’t sure there would ever be a point in my life when I would be over what had happened to us down in that hellhole. 

I wanted so badly to reach out, to apologize, to remind the girls how much they meant to me and how I didn’t know how to exist without them. No matter how much I wanted to though, my fear and my shame kept my hands far from the phone on my nightstand. My mind kept fluttering back to those pills my mom refused to let me take, and I couldn’t help but think that maybe she had been right to keep them from me, to punish me. After everything I had done, there was no way I deserved the reprieve of a full night’s sleep. 

Aria couldn’t even look us in the eye when she walked out of her room, and Hanna only really allowed Emily to come near her. Emily was the one they had looked to when we emerged from our torture chambers, and I was ashamed to find I was relieved. After everything that had happened, I didn’t exactly trust myself anymore, especially with my friends’ well being. Emily, though, Emily I trusted. 

Suddenly, my hands were moving to my nightstand of their own volition, and my fingers started typing before I even realized what I was doing. 

To: Emily Fields

Hey, you awake?

I wasn’t even sure what I was going to say if she answered, and I felt kind of dumb when I realized she was probably out cold after taking the anti-anxiety medication that I didn’t have access to, but there was a feeling of catharsis in the act as well. Before the arrests, Em was almost always the one I texted out of the blue when I was feeling confused or lonely or scared. Hell, I had texted her more often in dark times than I had texted Toby and Aria and Hanna combined. So there was a sense of normalcy in the action. And if I needed anything at that moment, lying awake re-experiencing our recent trauma, it was a sense of normalcy. 

My phone buzzed within seconds of my hitting send, and I jumped about three feet in the air at the sudden and very unexpected noise. 

From: Emily Fields

Unfortunately. I’m glad you texted me. I was afraid you wouldn’t reply if I reached out first…

Her honesty hit me in the gut in a way I had not expected. She was obviously feeling just as guilty as I was, and that hurt me even more than my own shame. I didn’t blame Emily or Hanna or Aria for anything that had happened while we were down there, and I hated the idea that Em would think that I did. 

To: Emily Fields

None of what happened was your fault, Em. I will always be here when you need me. ALWAYS. And if I’m being perfectly honest, I didn’t exactly expect you to answer either… The text was kind of a Hail Mary, lol

My hands trembled a little as I pressed send. I felt like crying and I wasn’t even sure why. 

From: Emily Fields

Is it okay if I come over? I miss you, and I hate the idea of both of us up all night and worrying or over-thinking everything on our own…

That I had not seen coming. 

To: Emily Fields

Won’t your mom be worried when she wakes up and you’re not there?

I knew very well that my own mother would probably kill me herself if she found out I had snuck out of the house the night I got home from the hospital. 

From: Emily Fields

I’ll leave her a note. Meet me at your kitchen door in ten.

And that was that. 

I couldn’t imagine pre-hellhole Emily ever suggesting something that had such a high probability of giving her mother a heart attack, but I had to remind myself that this was post-hellhole Emily, post-torture Emily, take-charge Emily. We were all different after that ordeal. It was something I was going to have to remind myself often from that point forward. 

I crept down the stairs as quietly as possible, sitting on the couch to wait, and having to physically hold down my knee to keep it from anxiously jumping up and down and making way too much noise. Waking my mother would probably end terribly for both Emily and me, especially given the blowout we had had earlier that evening. 

My blood ran cold at the soft knock at the door, and it took me a full minute to drag my mind out of Charles’s bunker and back into the present. Hurrying to the door, I ushered Emily inside, closing the door and locking it securely as soon as she had stepped over the threshold. 

On-edge was probably the tamest way I could have described my emotional state at that moment. 

As soon as I turned around, Emily’s arms found themselves flung tightly around my neck as she tugged me into a tight embrace, and I didn’t even hesitate to hug her back with everything in me. She started whispering something to me so quietly that I couldn’t make it out, but then she dug her face tightly into the crook of my neck, and I could **feel** the words she was forming as her lips brushed against my neck. 

_I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Spence. Please forgive me. I’m sorry._

The tears started streaming from my eyes completely of their own volition. My arms tightened around her and I wanted nothing more than to take her pain away. I didn’t know how.

“Shhh, sweetheart, there’s nothing to forgive. I’ve got you now. We’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay,” I whispered into her ear, reaching a hand up to run through her hair in an attempt to soothe her. 

“I’m so sick of being afraid all the time, Spencer,” Emily stated firmly, her face still settled in the crook of my neck, her lips still brushing lightly against my skin. 

It was an odd tickling sensation that I wasn’t sure I wanted to end. And here I had been thinking my life couldn’t get any more confusing after the strange emptiness I had felt as Toby hugged me in my hospital room; how hollow his promises felt. With Emily’s arms around me, I didn’t feel so empty, and I had no idea what that meant. I wasn’t sure I wanted to. 

Pulling back slightly, I looked her straight in the eye, and her own widened in surprise, probably at the tear tracks lining my face that were so markedly absent on her own. 

“I know, and I feel the same way,” I offered quietly, taking one of her hands in my own and squeezing lightly as I turned toward the stairs. “But let’s not talk about all that stuff tonight, I don’t think I’m ready to relive it out loud quite yet, no matter how many times my brain likes to replay it for me.”

Emily nodded and followed me silently up the stairs, slipping out of her jacket and shoes before climbing into bed with me pretty much as soon as we reached my room. After struggling internally with myself for at least five minutes, I rolled over and reached my arms out to her, inexplicably relieved when she rolled into them so effortlessly. It took only seconds for her to snuggle deep into my embrace, and I had never felt so safe in my life. 

Before my confusion could overwhelm me again, Em’s lips were brushing against my skin once more as she whispered to me. 

“I don’t remember how many nights it was, after a while time just didn’t seem to exist anymore, but there was one night that I almost opened my door to venture out. It was because I heard you scream earlier that day, and it tore me apart. I wanted to comfort you, see if you were okay, I needed to see you, but I couldn’t do it. I was too afraid. I’m sorry, Spence. I’m sorry I was too afraid to help you. I’m sorry I was a coward.”

Her voice broke a little toward the end of her speech, but otherwise, it was hard to read her. So I just squeezed her tightly to me, taking a deep breath before responding. 

“If you were a coward, then we all were, Emily. No one else will ever understand what we all went through down there, and we will always carry it with us, but eventually, we need to forgive each other, because we need each other, and you don’t give up on the people you love, none of us do,” I offered, trying my best not to cry again. 

Too many tears had been shed recently. 

There was a pause, a silence between us that frightened me more than any words could have, but thankfully it didn’t last long enough for me to start panicking too intensely. 

“I think the harder part is going to be forgiving ourselves,” Em breathed, her voice rough with emotion. 

I had no idea how to respond to that, so I stayed silent. She was right, of course, but I had no clue what to do about it, and obviously neither did she. So we just lay there silently, holding each other tightly, the future looming before us, ominous and uncertain. 

The only thing I was certain of was that I never wanted to let Emily go. 


End file.
